Does my salamander need a more varied diet?

[Trooper22]

I have had my female ambystoma opacum for about a month now. I have dug up earthworms from my compost pile to feed her, but I feel like it might cause some health problems to eat nothing but worms. Should I try to give her a more varied diet, or is she fine the way she is? She has had no problems with her appetite, and she is healthy. Thanks!

 

[Blackbun]

Hi Trooper, ask yourself, Why does any animal need a varied diet? Why do you? What it comes down to is not all food types (other than commercially produced diets eg rabbit pellets, just an example as I keep rabbits) are able to supply the complete range of nutrients to maintain a healthy metabolism.

Now whilst a single food type will appear to be adequate in the immediate future, in the longer term issues might arise. But having said that, you feeding wild caught worms might just be OK since they are likely to have a varied and exceptional gut load. For me, I have fed some of my fire salamander groups and marbled newts on an almost exclusive worm diet, supplemented with an ocassional slug or hairless caterpillar. Very, ocassionally (once every three weeks or more) I'll sprinkle a tiny amount of powdered vitamin/mineral on to a chopped worm.

If you can't get hold of slugs (in my mind very few slug species are suitable) very young snails whose shells are still quite soft, hairless caterpillars, small rounded bodied spiders, small house crickets, you might try giving a wax worm every so often though I've read these are quite fatty. I prefer wild caught food.

 

[Trooper22]

Thanks Bunny! I think I'll try to research a little more into slugs and crickets that could work. Salamandario sends her regards! :happy:

 

[Blackbun]

I'm still thinking about this varied diet question because some times I believe I become complacent and rely on crickets and wax worm larvae out of convenience. I think one week will be ok without something from the garden and then I get busy and it becomes two weeks. With summer here, and a warm and damp one, I'd expect to find lots of inverts in the garden without too much effort. My vegetable patch is taking a bashing from slugs this year so I get out there and collect them up. I do recommend feeding slugs to Salamandra but, for me, not any species. So, here's an issue. Take a look at this image. There are 306 in this jar (I collected four jars today). For me, not a single slug in this jar passed my suitability for feeding my animals. The issue is the thick, sticky slime. It takes a strong detergent to get it off my fingers. The gardeners' web sites say I should get a pond to attract frogs to eat the slugs. Believe me, the frogs won't touch them either.

So, varied diets are quite a challenge.

 

[Chinadog]

No they won't, the only slugs that seem palatable to amphibians are the small grey coloured ones, my T. verrucosus love those. About thirty years ago I had a pet Slow worm, and even though I kept it for about seven years, in all that time, the small grey slugs were the only thing it would eat!

 

[JM29]

I suppose wild animals take the food as it comes, following the seasons.
I simply imagine there is a season for earthworms, another for slugs, and that in the driest periods salamanders eat more arthropods (isopods, insects...).

I'm not sure the diet must be varied at all time but it will be varied year-round depending on the available food sources.

For tiny morphs (Cynops), I have now a different strategy to start them : I rear them on garden compost full of tiny varied animals.

 

[Blackbun]

Dear Chinadog I think you and I have had some similar experiences. Years back I too had slow worms (never did see the elusive blue spotted ones) and as you say they loved those soft bodied creamy grey slugs over anything else. These are the (only) very slugs I use to feed my lot now. If I see them in the garden , I'll leave them to breed.

JM I like the concept of a varied diet being a seasonal rather than daily/weekly one. You have a great point there.

 

[JM29]

Thank you, Blackbun.

This concept has already been shown for mammals such fox. I have few elements to support this seasonality in the case of wild salamanders.

Seasonality is an empirical constraint for my captive salamanders because earthworms are more difficult to find in summer than in spring or automn.

A for slugs, yes the small creamy grey slug (Deroceras reticulatum) is easily eaten by terrestrial salamanders, and even aquatic ones when slugs fall in an exterior setup. It's also one of the european slugs which breeds a lot (generation time of 6 month instead of 12 for most other species).

 

[Blackbun]

That's the one JM....I love these and rate them above earth worms.
I was thinking about newts with aquatic and terrestrial stages in their life cycle and how the changes in species of prey occur which might complicate this 'balanced' diet. Incidentally, the other night (warm and raining) I took the torch out and found some male common newts (T. vulgaris) in full breeding condition some two metres from the pond. I assume they were hunting and would return to the water.